Constrats 1870

Paul Cézanne made this oil painting, titled ‘Constrats’, using traditional materials of canvas, brushes and oil paint. Cézanne here seems to be taking a rather brutal approach to the application of paint. The pigment sits thickly on the canvas, particularly in the heavy beard and roughly-rendered hair. You can see the rapid movement of the artist’s hand, the visible brushstrokes building up a kind of topography across the surface of the canvas. There's a sense of urgency, almost violence, to the process of painting, as if the paint is being forced onto the canvas. This heavy, almost sculptural use of paint seems worlds away from the smooth surfaces of academic painting. And yet, like any painter, Cézanne was still reliant on the industrial production of materials: the weaving of the canvas, the grinding of pigment, the manufacture of brushes. This work reminds us that even the most apparently individual gestures are made possible by wider systems of labor and production. It invites us to reconsider the relationship between the artist’s studio, and the world beyond.